Friday, 30 April 2010

Recently I have an issue with IE8, the cause is that unable to open same form from different logins on a same windows machine. The reason for this issue with IE8 is that,

Internet Explorer 8 have not been allowed users to logon to the same Oracle E-Business Suite environment concurrently from the same desktop. The Session Merging feature in IE8 prevents this functionality by default when using servlet mode to connect to the application. This functionality causes the same sessionid to be used when accessing the same environment even if using a new browser window.

To retain multiple sessions functionality please use one of the following methods;

Open a new explorer window using its own session cookie by selecting 'File -> New Session' from an existing browser window.

Run from the command line adding the -nomerge parameter i.e. Start -> Run -> iexplore -nomerge

+. Login to Oracle E-business Suite and using 'Web ADI' , create a Document.
+. When Excel is launched with the created Document, a Menu is created on the Toolbar in Excel called Oracle (in between Data and Window).
+. From the Oracle menu select "About". A pop up window is displayed with the version of 'Web ADI' (something like 8.x.x.x)

Method : 2

+. Login into E-business Suite as System Administrator
+. Once the Home Page is up, paste the URL below into the same Browser window (replace hostname,domain and portnumber as applicable)

In this post I will introduce one of the primary AD utilities, AD Administration.

AD administration is divided into following categories

File generation task

File system maintenance tasks

Database maintenance tasks

Database entities compilation and reloading tasks

Normally these tasks are performed by database administrators.

Once preliminary tasks (running environment file, verify ORACLE_HOME set properly, ensure sufficient temporary disk space etc.,) are complete, you can start AD Administration at the operating system prompt by typing "adadmin".$ adadmin
Upon starting AD Administration, the utility prompts you for some key information. Once you provide AD Administration with this information, it will verify the configuration of your file system and connect to the database. You will then see the AD Administration main menu.

AD Administration Main Menu
This is the AD Administration main menu. It has four options

Generate Applications Files Menu
There are five functional choices in the Generate Applications Files menu and a sixth one that
returns you to the Main menu.

The Generate Product JAR files task prompts:
Do you wish to force generation of all jar files? [No]
If you choose No, it only generates JAR (Java Archive) files that are missing or out-of-date. Choose Yes for this option when generating JAR files after upgrading the Developer technology stack, after changing your digital signature, or after updating your Java version

In next post I will cover the Oracle Applications file system tasks and running AD Administration non-interactively.

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

The most important utilities in oracle applications are nothing but AD Utilities. So let’s look into the details in little more seriously.
The AD utilities are a set of tools used to install, upgrade, patch and maintain the Oracle Applications database and file system.AD utilities.
Many of the utilities used for Oracle Applications maintenance are called AD utilities. AD is an abbreviation for Applications DBA. The AD utilities have similar interfaces, operation, input and report format. Much of the discussion about how these utilities work is common to all the AD utilities.
In addition to the AD utilities, some maintenance tasks are run from the Oracle Applications Manager (OAM).
The AD utilities perform a variety of tasks, including generating files, updating your system, merging and applying patches, and installing off-cycle products. There are three primary AD utilities: AD Administration, AutoPatch, and AutoUpgrade. Several other maintenance utilities were developed for specific Oracle Applications maintenance tasks. As one AD utility runs, it may automatically call one of the other utilities. However, you can also run most utilities directly. The following is a list of AD utilities and their program names.
• AD Administration: adadmin
• AutoPatch: adpatch
• AutoUpgrade: adaimgr
• AD Controller: adctrl

Running the AD Utilities
To run an AD utility, type the utility’s start command (such as adpatch, adadmin or adaimgr) and answer the prompts.
$adadmin
You can exit most utilities by entering abort at any prompt. You can restart by typing the start command for that utility. When you restart, you can enter a new log file name or specify the log file from the previous session. When you reuse a log file, the utility adds the message “Start of session” to the end of the file and appends messages from the continued session as it generates them.
You can then do one of the following:
• Continue session (the default)
The utility restarts at the point where your last session stopped.
• Start new session
The utility asks you to confirm your choice if you choose not to continue the previous session. It then starts from the beginning.

Monday, 26 April 2010

If you want to learn apps dba, one should know there are different tops like APPL_TOP , COMMON_TOP or what eaxctly is TOP ? So TOP is top level directory in file system or oracle 11i software .

If you have done 11i or oracle application Installation by now, Oracle Installer Installs Apps 11i in DB Tier & Application Tier : so lets take Application Tier you will see three directories under your base Installation directory, these diretories are APPL, ORA & COMN. So directory APPL is called as APPL_TOP i.e. top appl directory where files; directories related to different Application ( like GL General Ledger, PO Purchase Order..) exists.

APPL_TOP Files and Directories
The Oracle Applications file system, under APPL_TOP, contains several different types of
files and directories, which can be categorized as follows:Oracle Applications environment files. The default name of the main Applications
environment file is .env, where the default value of is _. For convenience, there is also a

consolidated environment file called APPS.env. Environment files
are discussed in more detail in another module of this course.
A directory for each product, licensed or not, that has been installed under the
APPL_TOP directory.
Additional directories for administration and maintenance of all products. Examples
include the admin and au directories.

If you are DBA you can correlate it with your Oracle database software installation. Under ( ORA_TOP ) you will see diretcory related to oracle home , there are two oracle HOME's in Application Tier 8.0.6 for Forms & Reports , iAS for 9iAS acting as web server.

Common Components Directory - COMMON_TOPThe COMN or COMMON_TOP directory contains files used by many differentOracle Applications products, and which may also be used with third-party products.The COMMON_TOP/admin directory is the default location for the concurrent manager logand output directories. When the concurrent managers run Oracle Applications reports, theywrite the log files and temporary files to the log subdirectory of the admin directory(COMMON_TOP/admin/log) and the output files to the out subdirectory of the admindirectory (COMMON_TOP/admin/out).By default, the top-level directories for both Java (JAVA_TOP) and HTML (OAH_TOP) areboth under COMMON_TOP.

IAS_TOP is top files/directory under ORA_TOP/iAS I hope it might be clear to you now if not donot worry it will be more clear once you start working as Apps DBA.

Today one of my friend having an issue with adpatch utility. While doing the adpatch, when it prompt for APPS password, he have entered password wrongly three times and unable to do patch again. After that he had tried to unlock the APPS user successfully and can able to connect from TOAD and SQLplus etc,. But unable to run adpatch from application tier because it is not accepting apps password. Finally managed to disabled the maintenance mode, but can't apply patch using adpatch again.

Atlast tried to unlocked APPLSYS user. Now everything working fine and ongoing patch process completed without having any issues.

Sunday, 25 April 2010

Well, today my post is that another important and useful utility which apps dba perform quite often i.e. Cloning Oracle Application 11i Instance. Cloning is the act of creating an identical copy of an already existing Oracle Applications system for Test/Development instances.
Simply copying all of the components from source to target system does not provide us a working Oracle Applications system, there are various configuration files that must be changed & for this purpose we do Cloning. Do keep in mind that the new system & the existing system must have same component versions & operating system type (You can’t clone from windows to linux or Solaris).Performing Cloning prerequisites steps:
We need to perform certain prerequisites steps before cloning the source system:STEP 1. Login as Applications file user & run the environment file.STEP 2. We need to check certain software component versions:(i) Check the version of perl, it should be atleast 5.005 or above.
To check perl version, Type the following command-
$ perl -v
Make sure that perl is included in the PATH (environment variable of user; echo $PATH).(ii) Check the version of JRE & JDK which should be atleast 1.1.8 & 1.3.1 or above respectively. for this type:
$ java -version(iii) Check the version of zip which should be atleast 2.3 or above.for this type :
$ zip
If you don’t have following versions, upgrade these software components as per the operating system.STEP 3: It is recommendedto apply the latest AD Minipack & the latest AutoConfig Template patch as mentioned in the metalink note 230672.1 but not necessary.STEP 4: Then we check whether latest Rapid Clone patch is there or not, for this we query the database whether latest Rapid Clone patch and other prerequisite patches as mentioned in the metalink document 230672.1 as follows:
$ select * from AD_BUGS where bug_number='number';
If it shows ” no rows selected ” that means you need to apply the patch. Do ensure that you apply all the patches as per the requirement.STEP 5: If your system is autoconfig enable configure the application tier by running the adautocfg.sh script as follows:
$ cd $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts/CONTEXT_NAME/
$adautocfg.sh
If your system is not autoconfig enable then set up the autoconfig on application tier with the help of metalink document 165195.1 ( Migrating to AutoConfig on the Applications Tier).NOTE:

To check whether your system is AutoConfig enable or not , open any configuration file, if you see the text “This file is automatically generated by AutoConfig….”at the top,this mean your system is autoconfig enabled.

Also all the applications after 11.5.7 are autoconfig enabled.

STEP 6:Now we set up AutoConfig on the database tier. For this we need to copy AutoConfig to the RDBMS ORACLE_HOME as follows:
• login as Applmgr . Set up the environment file & create appsutil.zip file in AD_TOP by typing the following command:
$ perl $AD_TOP/bin/admkappsutil.pl
This creates appsutil.zip in the $APPL_TOP/admin/out directory.
• Now login as Oracle on the database tier & copy the appsutil.zip file to the and unzip it:
$ cd
$ cp $APPL_TOP/admin/out/appsutil.zip
$ unzip -o appsutil.zip (Option -o will overwrite any existing appsutil directory in database ORACLE_HOME)
Now run AutoConfig on the database tier:
$ cd /appsutil/scripts//adautocfg.shDon't forget to leave your comments if you have any confusion about this post from apps 11i.

Lets Start with Installation, You can start Installing Apps on Unix, Linux or Windows. I recommend Linux if not then Unix & finally Windows (I find it difficult working on windows as you need additional component to install E-Business Suite ) . For Installation Guide visit Oracle PDF at http://download-uk.oracle.com/docs/cd/B25516_08/current/acrobat/r115102ins.pdf This E-Business Suite Installation Guide consist of 166 pages & you need to Install all. Read Chapter 1-8 Single User Installation or Two User Installation. As by now you are aware that E-Business Applications Two Tier Database & Application , so first User Oxxxxx is for Database Tier & Second User Axxxxxx for Application Tier. If you are new & Installing it first time better Install everything on Single Machine, Database Under User Oxxxxx and Middle Tier under Axxxxxx.
Then you can Install Oracle Applications by Inserting CD's one after other or by dumping all disks to one location ( Universal Installer will not prompt to insert CD if you staged/dump your CD on Machine it in proper way, Pg 1-12 , page 24 of Guide), If you are Installing Oracle Apps first time, Select Single Node(Also called Single Machine) Installation. Go to Chapter 2, on page 29 of Guide , you will see screen by Screen navigation path for Installation ( Believe me its very simple and just 30 pages all screens so nothing much to read ). After installation forget Chapter 3,4,5 (these are for Advanced Installation Option - Look them once you are comfortable with Simple Instalation) go directly to chapter 6 , Page 141 (This describes how to Check/Access Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Installation) Just 10 pages. So here complete your Oracle 11i Application & that biggest challenge in becoming Oracle Apps DBA . If you face any Issues during Installation post your problem in some Forum or Metalink , else drop a comment on this Post.

This topic is quite important and please go through this thoroughly.
As per Oracle Documentation, terminology using in are...

Server - is a process or group of processes and provides a particular functionality/service For example, Database Server listen and process database requests, similarly Web Server listens for and processes HTTP requests.

Tier - is a logical grouping of services, may be on single machine or spread across more than one physical machine. For Example, Middle Tier in Oracle apps consist Form,Web,Report...Services. Forms & Report can be one machine 1 & Web Server can be on machine 2, still they will be part of same tier called as Application Tier or Middle Tier.

Node - is referred as Machine, Each tier may consist of one or more node and each node can potentially have more than one tier.

Desktop Tier - Oracle Applications
/E-Business Suite is built on three tier Architecture with first Desktop Tier ic client machines accessing applications via browser(HTML based Self service applications) or Java Applet(Jinitiator) for Form based interface.

Application/Middle Tier - Second is Application Tier also called as middle tier consists of WebServer Forms, Reports, Concurrent processing, Discoverer and Admin Server. I suppose its known as Middle tier because it lies between our desktop & third tier called database tier.